[Despite Baldwin's] absorption in culture's complexities and conundrums, despite his indictments of racism, his deepest impulses are religious, mythological and romantic. Certain themes emerge again and again in his work: that race does not exist, finally, except in a moral dimension; that we are one another's history and thus cannot abuse one another without abusing ourselves; that salvation and damnation are real, and depend upon our ability or our failure to love. Race and sex are the arenas in which we fight for love. Our racial and sexual histories are the opponents that must be bested….

[Love] is the principle that binds people in his novels—love between fathers and sons, men and men, men and women; love among blacks and love between blacks and whites. It is usually threatened: society stifles the parental love we expect and thwarts the romantic love we seek. Familial love, in Baldwin's...